Parents around the country are faced with the unavoidable challenge of talking to their children about a pandemic that’s changed our daily lives, and protests that have stemmed from a history of racial injustices in our country. This week, we’re talking to three Lubbock families about how they’re conducting these conversations with their children.
Jimmy and Carlene Kelly
In a video Jimmy Kelly recorded, he talks to his six-year-old son Richard about race. “So Richard,” he starts, “Let’s start by talking about race.”
“What is race,” Richard asks.
Jimmy laughs and begins breaking down, in simple terms, what race in the United States looks like. “In America they would say people who look like me were Black, and people who look like your mother are white,” Jimmy says.
“What about me? I’m in between,” Richard says.
“That’s right, you’re in between…”
Like parents around the country, Jimmy and his wife Carlene have had to navigate some pretty heavy topics with their young son recently. He just finished kindergarten and thanks to schools shutting down, the pandemic was something he had to comprehend early on.
“We joke about the ‘Corona-pirates,’ I saw that in a meme, and it makes it fun,” Carlene, Richard’s mom, says. It makes a scary topic a little more digestible for the kindergartener, while maintaining the message of severity. Carlene and Jimmy say, their son understands the virus. He knows it makes people really sick and that the safest thing they can do is stay inside. But it she says, he still gets upset about it and misses his friends.
The protests that have erupted over the police killing of George Floyd and so many other Black men, is a lot
tougher to tackle for the young family. Jimmy says that one thing that used to prompt a lot of questions from Richard was the news they would listen to on their morning drives to school. But since the schools shut down, Richard’s intake of news has stopped as well. So, Jimmy and Carlene aren’t really sure how much their son knows about the protests.
“Richard, he just has questions,” Jimmy says. “So when he asks about something I explain it to him.” Richard hasn’t asked about the current protests yet and Carlene says they haven’t brought it up to him. “With him being six—he’s smart and understands a lot—but he’s still six. So, it’s kind of a struggle as far as that goes is how much is too much,” she says.
He has however been curious about other situations involving race.
Carlene recalls a few conversations that stemmed from his questions. One night, while laying together at bedtime, Richard said, “Your skin is different than my skin and way different than dad’s skin.” He’s beginning to notice the differences, his parents say.
Back in January, when the children were learning about Martin Luther King Jr. another tough topic was brought up. Richard said to his mom, “A long time ago daddy couldn’t be in the same place as us.”
She responded, “Yes.”
Richard asked, “why.”
“And that’s a really tough question to answer a six-year-old,” Carlene says.
But Jimmy and Carlene know that in a few years they’ll have to have an even harder conversation—one that Robert Baxter, another father we’ll talk with on a later episode, says is like a rite of passage for Black people.
“I don’t want to overwhelm him and scare him yet,” says Carlene. She says yet because she knows the conversation is inevitable. “I know we’re going to have to have multiple serious talks as he gets older about life as we know it and life as a Black male.”
Richard is mixed, but Carlene says, when people look at him, they’re going to see Black. “The ones you’re going to worry about are the ones who are going to see it and treat you differently.”
“Well maybe some of that will change a little,” Jimmy says.
“Hopefully,” Carlene responds.
Robert Baxter
There’s a specific conversation that, according to Lubbock-native Robert Baxter, is like a rite of passage for Black people. “I got it, my brother got it. It’s like the birds and the bees,” he says.
The “talk” he’s referring to is the talk Black parents have with their children about how to behave around cops. “I’ve had it with [my son], even at this age.”
Robert’s eight-year-old son, Olan, is a sweet and rambunctious kid according to his dad. He’s always been open with his son about racial situations—even taking him to a Black Lives Matter protest a few years back when he was around five.
Robert wants his son to understand that despite our differences, we need to be united in our mission as humans. The division and the fighting has to go, according to Robert. “I want him to grow up in a world where he doesn’t have to deal with that. But I want him aware that it is there. It’s a very real issue.”
Robert tries to see the issue from his son’s perspective. “From his view, I think it’s confusing that people treat other people in such a way.” He thinks it’s hurtful and difficult for a young child to comprehend.
When it comes to recent news of police brutality towards Black men, Robert has tried to minimize the amount of description he includes when talking to his son without altering the overall story.
“I do let him know that a person was choked, or they were shot in the back,” he says, while avoiding details like how many times they were shot. “I try to give him little snippets, enough where his brain can process at least that someone was murdered.” Snippets that indicate that they were murdered when they shouldn’t have been.
With the recent events, he’s started to allow Olan to watch the news coverage of the protests on television. He wants his son to see the emotion behind these events, for him to recognize it’s hurtful.
The most difficult conversation Robert has to have with his son goes back to that initial talk he mentioned in the beginning. “I’ve told him that if you see the police just be still. If we get pulled over don’t move, I’ll roll the windows down so they can see,” Robert says.
They take these precautionary measures, he says, so they can get home safely. “I tell him: I’m not going to say that this won’t happen to me, but I will try not to let it happen. I will do my best to get home to you.” It’s a difficult thing to tell his son, he says, but it’s one that is necessary.
Tammy Fife
Tammy Fife has dealt with her share of struggles since the onset of COVID in mid-March. Not only had she
begun chemotherapy for her recent cancer diagnosis, around that time, the single mother to three adopted boys, also lost her job working for a travel agency. To top it off, the family of four found themselves confined to their home for weeks at a time.
Four months later, she’s realizes that for her kids, sometimes it’s not about fully understanding the situations they’re in, it’s about navigating the emotions that come with them.
“I deal a lot with special needs,” she says, regarding her three sons. Their ages range from 10 to 15. Her youngest son struggles with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, while her oldest has Autism. “We deal with a lot of sensory disorders. A lot of anger issues,” according to their mother.
Tammy and her ex-husband adopted the three boys a few years back. They had raised two daughters, who had left for college. With an empty house, they made the decision to adopt. After 26 years of marriage, Tammy’s husband left her and the boys.
“Tyler, who’s my oldest boy, at the end of April, first of May, he became very sad being home,” Tammy says. “I know that we have dealt with some real signs of true depression.” She’s had to learn to hold open discussions with him, to help him identify and express his anger.
Creating a safe space to share emotions and ask questions is something Tammy has learned raising her sons on her own, and it’s been reiterated during this time. And a big part of her parenting has come from not just talking but exposing her boys to people from all walks of life.
All three of her boys are mixed race. Tammy is white and in her fifties. “Every one of them will deal with, and have dealt with the fact of they look a little different.” She explains that when people see them all together, they’ll point Tammy out as their mother, “And they’ll say nu-uh,” she says.
Prior to the pandemic, Tammy and the boys had a routine of getting involved in organizations all over Lubbock. Whether they’re eating beside the homeless in our community at Lubbock Impact, or setting up weekly meetings for single moms at Her Legacy, the three young men have become acquainted with all types of people.
“They’ve learned to just love and not judge and in the same sense,” Tammy says. “I don’t want my boys to be judged.”
When all else fails, Tammy relies on another method for talking to her sons about the tough stuff…movies. She finds that various movies raise some good questions that start important conversations. “I always tell them, I don’t have all the right answers,” she says. “I just have the answers that I feel like for me, make the most sense and make the things continue to work.”
Watch Tammy’s story from Beyond the Report.
